The Emma Wild Mysteries: Complete Holiday Collection Books 1-4 (Cozy Romantic Mysteries with Recipes) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Complete Holiday Series

  BOOK 1: KILLER CHRISTMAS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RECIPE 1: Hot Chocolate Latte

  RECIPE 2: Organic Hot Chocolate Recipe

  BOOK 2: NEW YEAR'S SLAY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BOOK 3: DEATH OF A SNOWMAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BOOK 4: VALENTINE'S VICTIM

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lena’s Lavender Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

  Demi’s Classic Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

  Cherry’s Strawberry Cupcake with Strawberry Whipped

  Larson’s Lazy Fudge Oreo Cupcakes

  Cupcake Recipes

  What's next for Emma Wild?

  About the Author

  The Emma Wild Mysteries

  The Complete 4-Book Holiday Collection

  Book 1: Killer Christmas

  Book 2: New Year’s Slay

  Book 3: Death of a Snowman

  Book 4: Valentine’s Victim

  by Harper Lin

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2014 Harper Lin. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Cover illustrations by Allison Marie for Alli's Studio, Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. No portion of these designs may be reproduced without consent from the artist.

  The Complete Holiday Series

  BOOK 1: KILLER CHRISTMAS

  CHAPTER ONE

  I’ve had people faint in my presence before, but never one to drop dead at my feet—literally. The girl I was chatting with at the cafe suddenly began to choke and shake. Her drink slipped from her hand and she collapsed onto the floor. Her body convulsed and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. The spilt hot chocolate made it look as if she was lying in a pool of brown blood.

  I knew the drink had been poisoned. I knew it in my gut when I bent down to inspect her body and the drink on the floor. And I also knew that I was somehow responsible for what happened. She died because of me. But I didn’t admit any of this to myself until later.

  At the time, however, I only thought that perhaps it was a good idea to stay away from hot chocolate.

  ***

  Maybe I should start at the beginning. Or should I say the end? A story can begin with heartbreak or end with one, but I was sure not willing to let both happen.

  In my instance, the story began with heartbreak and I was not willing to let it end until a happy ending was reached.

  My name is Emma Wild. Yup, that Emma Wild. The crooner with the two Grammy award-winning albums. Jazz, blue eyed soul, alternative and mainstream pop are some of the ways they would try to categorize my music.

  How would I categorize myself? An incurable romantic. And a singer.

  I wasn’t always that girl on MTV singing about heartbreak in a husky alto voice choked full of tears. I didn’t always wear body-hugging dresses and my red hair in glamorous waves styled over one eye. I grew up in Hartfield, Ontario, a town about an hour and a half from Toronto. It was a charming town and my family still lived there, but at eighteen years old, I tailed on out of there, forgoing college to pursue my singing career. For two years, I busted my ass singing at every open mic in New York City. I knocked on every door, and pushed demo tapes into the hands of anyone who was connected to anyone until finally somebody gave me a chance. Then it became a blur from there.

  My record company was behind me every step of the way—at least in the looks department. I was a control freak in the studio, so I let them play with my hair and makeup and put me in designer clothes and on the cover of magazines while I picked which producers, musicians and video directors I wanted to work with.

  Along with all that came the world tours - Paris, Tokyo, Melbourne, you name it. TV appearances, award shows, press conferences, and movie premieres consumed my years. A “thank you” and a smile here, a funny quip there, a twirl to show off who I was wearing—I could do all that stuff in my sleep. Literally. Sometimes I was so tired from all the work and travel that I would give an interview while I was half asleep. Still, I had fun with it; playing the fame game came pretty easily to me because I didn’t take it seriously.

  The only thing I took seriously was my work, the music. I’d been writing my own songs since I could write. In high school, I played clarinet in the school band…nerd alert. I sang at every event where somebody allowed me to take hold of a mic. I’d even go to poetry slams and sing with a guitar instead.

  During my childhood and teen years in Hartfield, every winter I’d sing at the Christmas concert at the town square, and every summer I’d sing at the food festival. Then there was everything in between: talent shows, private parties, baseball games. Whoever needed a singer would only need to speed dial my mom.

  So it didn’t surprise my friends and family that I would make it big with all the ambition and the steely determination that I possessed. Due to my busy schedule, their relationship with me was pretty one-sided most of the time. Sure, I called them whenever I could, and I would fly them into New York, where I lived, but on a day-to-day basis they learned about what was happening in my life through the tabloids. Especially in recent years when I starting dating someone more famous than I was.

  In general, my private life was generally pretty tame up until I met him. All I did was work. I’d ignore all the stories in the pap
ers, magazines and blogs written about me to keep my sanity and self-esteem intact.

  After dating a few industry types, I’d sworn celebrities off. I was bored stiff by their massive egos and self-entitlement. Then along came Nicolas Doyle. Yes, that Nick Doyle. The movie star who had a bad habit of dating supermodels until he met me. Me, a 5’2” redhead with pale skin and freckles—a little ball of fire, as the journalists would sometimes call me. I didn’t think I was his type; I wasn’t under contract with Victoria Secret as one of their Angels. But once Nick has his eyes set on something, or someone, he usually got what he wanted.

  Soon I started showing up at his movie premieres, separately. We tried our best to keep our private lives private, but it didn’t take long for the tabloids to put two and two together, and soon I was being photographed in my sweatpants during my daily morning runs in Central Park.

  When I first ran into him at the Vanity Fair party, I was joking around with a bunch of joke writers. They were a pretty funny pack. They kept teasing me for how bad my jokes were and kept trying to make even worse jokes to one-up me. Nick joined in, seemingly out of nowhere, with an extra glass of champagne and a witty remark of his own (something about horse butts—don’t ask), and I downed the glass to keep myself from shaking.

  Back then, he wasn’t Nick. He was the Nicolas Doyle that the public knew. The piercing blue eyes that burned through movie screens, the mischievous grin, the raw talent that allowed him to disappear into any role—I’d grown up with him from baby-faced TV star to strong-jawed leading man.

  I was totally starstruck at first, but I fell in love with him after I knew him. I loved that he got involved with all sorts of causes. All the charity work that he did during his time off was not a publicity act, I came to find out. It was what made him irresistible. Underneath all the Hollywood hoopla, he was a caring guy. When he had passion for something, he threw everything into it, whether it was acting, saving extinct pandas, or brightening up the lives of children born with cleft palates. So when he didn’t want to get married after four years of being together, I knew that something was wrong.

  When a guy could take or leave you, it wasn’t not a good sign. I’d been down that road before, got the t-shirt and didn’t want to go back there again. It was in my best interest to move on, even if it was the hardest thing I had to do—maybe the second hardest.

  I packed all my stuff from his New York penthouse and stayed holed up for a week in a hotel, churning out song after song on this little hotel notepad. I couldn’t think about finding another apartment yet, but I knew I had to eventually. I didn’t know if I even wanted to stay in the city, where I’d be constantly paranoid about running into him or his millionaire friends.

  Luckily, Christmas was coming up and I had the excuse to go back to Canada to spend the holidays with my family for a while, so I booked the next flight to Toronto, then hired a driver to take me to the my hometown.

  It was in the car that I began to panic about something else. I hadn’t been back in Hartfield for at least two years.

  It wasn’t until I was getting close to the town when I remembered that I stayed away from Hartfield as much as I could for good reasons. One to be exact. The cause of the first story of my life. The one that ended in heartbreak.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I haven’t celebrated Christmas in Hartfield for five years. Usually around this time, I’d be touring or doing promotional work somewhere in the world, or spending the holidays with Nick’s family.

  I never thought that staying away from Hartfield was a conscious decision, but now I saw that maybe it was. I had flown my family to Mount Tremblant in Quebec for most of those winters and we’d spent time together there. I’d meet them on neutral grounds sometimes weekends, mostly in New York, where I lived and they never got tired of visiting. They would also fly to my concerts all the time, which could be in any part of the world.

  Since Mirabelle got pregnant five months ago, it’d been more of a challenge for her to travel in recent months, so I was eager to see her most of all.

  I did love Hartfield at Christmas. It was so lovely during this time of year. The Christmas Market was probably all set up at the town square. Performers would sing, play music or put on shows most evenings. There would be a little more pep in the townspeople’s steps, although the stray from their usual lax attitude could also be from the stress of shopping and finding the right gifts for their loved ones.

  And of course, the best place in the world was sitting in front of the fireplace at my old house, nursing a cup of my dad’s eggnog and chatting with my family. The lovely smell of something baking in the oven would waft in whenever somebody passed through the door from the kitchen to the living room, and Christmas muzak would set the mood from the vinyl player in the corner.

  In a word, Harfield was cozy this time of year.

  All I had to do was put my sour memories in the gutter and focus on having a joyous time with my family.

  But as I sat in the back of the car that was driving into Hartfield from the airport, I suddenly started to cry.

  The stress was getting to me. It had been an emotional week. I’d been with Nick for so long and I was madly in love. I still was, but my pride gave me the strength to walk away. If I didn’t get out now, I’d been losing the best years of my life to someone with commitment phobia.

  The driver was kind enough not to notice the sobbing, and even turned on the radio a little louder out of consideration.

  After a few songs, one of mine came on. “Falling Into Pieces” was a smooth jazz song that I wrote last year about how much I loved Nick. That made me sob even harder. It really hurt to love a man who didn’t return love you the way you wanted him to. But I was too stubborn to accept anything less. I’d written a handful of new songs about that recently.

  When we reached Hartfield, my tears had more or less dried. I looked out the windows at the fresh white snow blanketing over the houses and the stores. Christmas decorations were everywhere, with lights strung up from lamppost to lamppost. The sight of my old hometown cheered me up; a smile began to crack on my face.

  I instantly regretted being so chicken to come back every Christmas. This was the best place to be this time of year. Plus, nobody was here to hound me with questions about my personal life. No paparazzi here and the townspeople who did recognize me left me alone. This was Canada after, where no one was overly impressed by anything. I was used to being mobbed by fans and paparazzi in big cities around the world. Getting your picture taken when you have no makeup on, wearing sweats and just want a cup of coffee from down the block did very little for your self-esteem when you were torn to shreds on some gossip blog or Page Six the next day. Hartfield could’ve been my sanctuary.

  When the driver pulled up in front of my parents’ house, my breathing was no longer punctuated by uncontrollable sobbing. The driver helped me with my luggage and I slipped him a huge tip. Any acts of kindness from strangers was magnified tenfold and I was beyond grateful.

  “Thank you so much, Carl,” I said to the driver.

  “You’re welcome,” he said with a wink. “Take care of yourself. Oh, and my wife is a big fan.”

  “Oh really? What’s her name?”

  “Sadie,” he replied.

  I reached into my purse and pulled out a copy of my third CD. It wasn’t released yet, but I’d brought some extra copies for family and friends.

  I signed it and gave it to Carl.

  “Here.”

  A toothy grin appeared on his face and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said.

  “Merry Christmas!”

  When he drove off, I took in the crisp air. But my moment of appreciation was cut short.

  A woman stared at me from across the street. She looked like she was squinting in my direction or giving me a dirty look. She was dressed in an oversized wool sweater, her strawberry blonde hair was in a messy ponytail. She looked familiar.

  �
��Emma Wild,” she called.

  At the sound of her shrill voice, I recognized her instantly. Kendra Kane. I’d call her my nemesis if the term didn’t make me laugh. We were friends in grade school until her bossy nature conflicted with my independent one. She was the mean girl of the school. Maybe she was every girl’s nemesis.

  I couldn’t stand the way she was always so competitive, trying to outdo me, or anyone really, every chance she got. I couldn’t stand girls who brought other girls down to lift themselves up and I largely ignored her from middle school on. That was when I started hanging out with Jennifer and Cassandra, who still remain my two BFFs, although they were both scattered around the country now.